Chinese Jet Barrel-Rolls Over U.S. Plane Bringing Protest

A Chinese fighter in international waters buzzed a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft within 20 feet and did a barrel roll over it in an incident that prompted a diplomatic complaint, U.S. officials said today. Source: Pentagon via Bloomberg

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- A Chinese fighter jet in
international waters buzzed a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft
within 20 feet and did a barrel roll over it in what the White
House called a provocation.

The Aug. 19 incident took place about 135 miles (217
kilometers) east of Hainan Island, the southernmost tip of
China, amid international tensions over China’s increasingly
assertive territorial claims. U.S. and Chinese planes have had
several close encounters over the sea since March.

“It’s obviously a deeply concerning provocation,” Ben
Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security
adviser, told reporters yesterday in a briefing on Martha’s
Vineyard, Massachusetts, where Obama is on vacation. “We’ve
made our concerns known directly to Beijing.”

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in
Washington, said in an e-mail that he couldn’t comment on
the allegations because he didn’t have details.

“At the same time,” he said, “it has to be pointed out
that allegations of similar incidents in recent years all
occurred over the coastal waters of China, not those of the
United States.”

The Chinese J-11 fighter passed the P-8 Poseidon at 90
degrees, with its belly toward the U.S. aircraft to show off its
weapons, according to a U.S. Defense Department statement. The
maneuver left the Chinese pilot unable to see the American
aircraft, “further increasing the potential for a collision,”
the Pentagon said.

Boeing Aircraft

The Chinese pilot then flew directly under and alongside
the P-8, bringing their wingtips within 20 feet (6 meters), and
did a barrel roll over the P-8, passing within 45 feet before
stabilizing his fighter, the Pentagon said.

“Military activities may be conducted within the Exclusive
Economic Zone of another nation as an exercise of the freedoms
of navigation and overflight,” the Pentagon said in reference
to the U.S. plane’s proximity to China.

The P-8, made by Chicago-based Boeing Co., is the Navy’s
newest surveillance aircraft, deployed to the Pacific as part of
a U.S. strategic shift to Asia.

The most serious encounter between a Chinese fighter and
U.S. aircraft was an April 2001 collision with a Navy EP-3
surveillance plane. It resulted in the first diplomatic crisis
of President George W. Bush’s administration after the U.S.
aircraft made an emergency landing on Hainan Island.

China claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea under
a map first published in 1947, a territory that extends hundreds
of miles south from Hainan Island and takes in the Paracel
Islands, which are claimed by Vietnam, and the Spratly Islands,
some of which are claimed by the Philippines.